


Honey and No Pain

by blue_wonderer



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, laughing, so fluffy guys, tickle attacks, tired gal and boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 08:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13163508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_wonderer/pseuds/blue_wonderer
Summary: "Faster than she can blink, quick reflexes borne of pain and survival engage, not to draw an arrow or to inflict injury, but to sneak a tickle attack at Barry’s sides."Oliver discovers something about Barry and decides to share this newfound knowledge with Iris.





	Honey and No Pain

**Author's Note:**

> This actually came from a long-ago conversation with [pornyplothead](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pornyplothead/pseuds/pornyplothead) where it was decided that Oliver would probably [chuff like a tiger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ksr0-H1gmI) and Barry would [chirp like a cheetah when he laughs/is tickled](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSickcDomwo). So. Enjoy big cat!boys.

Iris walks in to their apartment, feet throbbing, bag heavy on her shoulder, her brain reciting the last lines of the article about metahuman rights she turned in to her editor just twenty minutes ago. _"You can't change metahuman genes like you can change clothes,"_ she'd written with a tight throat and gritted teeth. She'd concluded with a challenge, _"the risks we take tell us who we are"_ and _"let's take the right risks, let's make history."_ She breathes out as she closes the door, pressing her forehead against the wood as she shuts her eyes against another familiar wave of doubt. _Does what I write even matter? How can it possibly be heard in all of the noise—how can it possibly_ change _anything?_

She opens her eyes again, head aching, and finds herself smiling when she sees a pair of boots set neatly next to the heap of Barry’s coat and scuffed red Converse (at least he made it in the _vicinity_ of the coat rack this time). She tilts her head, listening in puzzlement when no sound greets her. 

“Hello?” She calls. 

“Here,” a low murmur drifts from deep in the apartment. Oliver. She sets down her bag and keys and walks toward the bedroom. She sighs mushily at the sight before her. 

They lounge on the bed together, both shirtless because of the warm apartment. The expanse of their skin makes her eyes linger as she soaks them in, studying every line and slope, every scar and bruise. They are stretched out, like a pair of big cats sunning themselves. Oliver is mostly on his back, and awake. Barry is half on his stomach and half on Oliver, arm and leg thrown possessively across the older man as if to keep him from leaving while Barry’s asleep. 

Oliver, because he secretly loves cuddling, doesn’t even pretend to be annoyed by Barry’s starfish impressions any more. 

“I didn’t think you were coming this weekend,” Iris whispers, leaning against the doorframe. 

“ _You_ came home early,” he responds almost accusingly, ignoring her not-question with a not-question of his own. 

She eyebrows him. “I’m forty-five minutes _late_ , actually.” 

"How'd the article go? Barry told me about it." 

She whisper-groans, runs a hand over her face, and thinks of the chocolate ice cream in the freezer. 

"Ah," Oliver sighs, reading her look. "It went like that." 

"I just..." She trails off, her self-doubt suddenly seeming a little foolish once she tries to ascribe actual words to it. 

"It matters," Oliver whispers after a pause where his tired blue eyes consider her own. "It has to." 

The words warm her, and so does Oliver's surprising show of insight. She supposes if anyone could understand her thoughts of late, it'd be the vigilante of Star City. 

At this point, she’s spied the healing cut on Oliver’s lower lip, slight bruising around his temple, and a Tic-Tac-Toe-shaped bandage spanning his chest and shoulder. He has dark rings under his eyes. And yet he’d traveled a few hundred miles from Star City to be here with them, anyway. He looks far from well-rested, even after their apparent nap, but he looks ridiculously contended, as he always does, to have his arms full of Barry. 

The back of Barry’s shoulders is still ever so slightly discolored—the last remnants, she knows, from a meta Barry encountered around three o’clock this morning. His healing had done a lot, but he’d spent six hours in the infirmary with three broken ribs, a scapula fracture, and a cracked pelvic bone before he could manage the pain well enough to walk into work. And this on top of—or, more likely, _because of_ —almost three nights of grueling crime fighting and very little sleep. 

“Oh no,” Oliver groans quietly, sending her a bleary puppy look. “We fell asleep. Barr and I had planned a surprise, too—it mostly involved wine and roses and a bubble bath. I’m so sorry.” 

She swallows at the sight of their cuts and bruises, at the memory of staring unseeingly at the coms in STAR Labs as she listened to Barry’s pained scream early this morning, and re-commits herself to tucking away how they look in this exact moment into her heart. 

They're so tired and bruised, and yet they’d tried planning a night to pamper _her_. Her boys. Ridiculous and beautiful. 

“Guess you’ll owe me one.” And then, after a thoughtful beat, she adds more hopefully, “But maybe we can go ahead and have the wine?” 

Oliver chuckles, a soft rush of air so as not to wake Barry. But the movement, or their voices, causes Barry to start to stir anyway. 

“‘Lo, Irish,” Barry slurs from where his face is pressed into Oliver’s chest. He tries to blink his eyes open but winces at the light and irritably rubs his face into Oliver’s skin. The older man actually _chuffs_ contentedly at the action and pulls Barry in closer to drop a tender kiss on the top of his head. 

Actual big cats, Iris swears. 

Drawn to them, as ever, like she’s the compass needle following their pull (Barry claims that it’s the opposite, but she can’t even begin to see it that way), she pushes herself from the doorframe and walks toward them. She kisses the side of Barry's neck, right behind his ear. He responds with a long sound in the back of his throat—it’s a purr, both she and Oliver agree—and starts to make more of an effort to wake up. 

Then she turns to Oliver, who’s watching them with that longing and lost look that always breaks her heart to tiny pieces. Him she kisses slow and sweet, just to feel the way he allows himself to relax and smile into her lips. She breaks it, running her fingers through his short hair, careful of the bruise at the side of his head. 

“Hey, Iris?” Oliver asks, tiredness ebbing away before her eyes, leaving behind that stupidly cute frat boy grin he never quite got rid of (thank God for that). “Did you know about this?” 

Her grin is purely reactionary as she puts her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrows curiously. “Know about what?” 

Faster than she can blink, quick reflexes borne of pain and survival engage, not to draw an arrow or to inflict injury, but to sneak a tickle attack at Barry’s sides. 

The effect is instantaneous. Barry’s eyes fly the rest of the way open and he inhales, jerks, and lets out a string of curses between peals of laughter. And then, after a second, shortened inhale, the laughter continues but goes silent as Barry loses his breath. Oliver’s hands move relentlessly toward his upper ribs. 

And then Barry sort of _chirps._

“What the actual fuck is that, Barry?” Oliver asks, laughing now, looking utterly mystified and delighted. “Do it again,” he commands, and then he bends his considerable tactician’s mind towards widening the scope of his attack, systematically working to elicit another response from Barry. 

Never one to disappoint, it’s only a few more seconds before Barry chirps successively twice more. This sends Oliver into another round of helpless laughter, and makes him determined to wring out more of the sound. Barry pushes against him, flailing hands and feet at Oliver with equal prejudice as he tries valiantly to get away, chirping as he goes. 

Iris laughs, too. How can she not? 

Oliver stops, looks up at her, boyishly pleased to have been the one to make them both laugh. Barry stills, eyebrows drawing together in a scowl, hair sticking up, cheeks flushed, lips pushed in a pout as he mutinously declares, “You’re such an asshole.” 

She kisses that pout, how can she not? And when Barry melts beneath her, compliant and distracted, Oliver moves in for the kill. 

Barry chirps. Iris laughs, which turns into a shriek when Barry pulls her down onto the bed between him and Oliver, shamelessly using her as a shield. Which is fine with her, because she’s in prime position for her own tickle attack. Barry _squeals_ , chirps again, and tries to burrow beneath the sheets in a desperate attempt to avoid her hands. 

Oliver presses his head into her back, laughing so hard he actually starts to wheeze. 

The whole thing isn’t quite wine, roses, and bubble baths and yet it’s them, together in their own little pocket of the world. Iris feels her heart swell with the chorus of their laughter, and it feels like she’s falling in love all over again. 

**end.**

**Author's Note:**

> _You look like you smell of_
> 
> _honey and no pain_
> 
> _let me have a taste of that_
> 
> (Rupi Kaur)


End file.
